


others should not count the price

by fencesit



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-02-04 12:17:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18604375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fencesit/pseuds/fencesit
Summary: Seven days into his captivity, a rat crawls across Kakashi’s foot. It’s not the first rat he’s seen, but this one stops on his foot and turns to look at him, little feet digging into the side of Kakashi’s sandals, like it’s checking to see if he’s dead yet.Kakashi is not dead — yet — so he tells the rat, “No. Bad. Go away.” Then he twitches his foot and hopes that will convey to the rat that it shouldn’t start nibbling on him.





	others should not count the price

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kurgaya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurgaya/gifts).



> These characters were such fun to write! Thanks for giving me the opportunity.

“I do not have enough chakra left to produce a bird that could carry both of us,” Sai says when they’ve got a few minutes to regroup and plan. Like Kakashi, he’s soaked with the sweat of a fight that’s lasted too long, although unlike Kakashi he doesn’t seem to be injured. 

Kakashi presses a hand to his own side. His vest is damp with blood, and Sai’s sharp eyes don’t miss the movement. Before he can comment, Kakashi says, “It only has to carry you. You have enough for that?” 

Sai’s flat expression and tone of voice are somehow, subtly, accusatory when Sai says, “I do.” 

“Good.” Kakashi digs out the intel they’d retrieved and holds it out to Sai. “Head straight for Konoha.” 

Sai doesn’t take it. 

Kakashi wiggles the scroll at him. “We don’t have time to argue. Take it and go.” 

Instead of taking the scroll, Sai says, “Regulations state that I—” 

“This is not a debate. I’m your captain. You have your orders. This is our mission. Go. Now.” Kakashi shoves the scroll against Sai’s chest and lets go so that Sai has to catch it. 

Kakashi knows _exactly_ what the regulations say. He’d read that passage obsessively for years and years — _19.8c: In the event that the mission goal cannot be completed while preserving the life of all team members, the least specialized member shall be volunteered to engage the enemy in whatever manner most benefits the goals of the team._ — and he doesn’t care to have it parroted back to him. Or even brought up at all. 

For a moment, it seems like Sai might argue... but then his face sets with determination, and he nods. “Yes, taichō,” is the last thing Sai says to him before tucking the scroll away, creating one of his birds, and winging away to the south just as the enemy arrives. 

“We can’t let him get away,” says their leader, an older man with still-weeping wounds from one of Sai’s ink beasts down one arm. 

A squad of four ninja break off immediately to follow Sai south, all of them looking fresh and unfamiliar, untouched by the previous fights — very likely they’re recently-arrived reinforcements who’ve yet to engage. 

Sai is safe enough for now, as high up as he is, but he’ll have to land eventually and Kakashi knows very well that it’s possible to follow a ninja who’s on the wing until they land. Sai will have a good chance of getting away if he can get out of sight, but otherwise the enemy will run him down and strike the moment he lands. 

Kakashi kills the leader first, to throw the rest into disarray. He uses a wind jutsu to make it a messy kill, a spectacle that showers the ninja standing closet with a fine mist of blood and small, unidentifiable bits of gore and bone. Then Kakashi turns and immediately goes after the group that’s split off after Sai. 

The wound on Kakashi’s side, a set of shallow puncture wounds complicated by likely-broken ribs, is not improved by the continued activity as Kakashi hurtles through the trees, twists and ducks to avoid projectiles, and engages the enemy squad. Unlike the enemy, Kakashi isn’t fresh to this fight. Kakashi is fighting with dregs, the energy of each movement scraped up from nothing and forced out into the world with the power of a clear goal: Sai will get away. 

* * *

There will be no rescue. 

Kakashi’s been in the room before when the inevitable decision not to launch a rescue for one or two stray shinobi has come up. It’s always been the same: whoever’s got the most information on the situation falls silent as their report ends, and Sarutobi Hiruzen takes a long, contemplative drag off of his pipe. _Regrettably,_ the Sandaime always says, _we simply cannot risk our people for the sake of one ninja, no matter how much I wish it were otherwise_. 

Everyone is always very careful not to look uncomfortable. Practically no one ever argues. 

Although... it’s not Sarutobi Hiruzen leading the village these days, Kakashi remembers a little fuzzily, his head lolling against the rough cinder block of his cell as he struggles to nail down the exact circumstances of his capture — the date, the mission objective, and the enemy all escape him. Fall or spring? Intel, sabotage, or escort? Iwa, Kumo, or other? 

One thing slides into the next. He remembers the Sandaime dying — the rain at the funeral — so it’s probably Tsunade who’s in charge, although Kakashi can’t quite grasp the details of her POW policies. Has he been there to hear her say those words? Does she say, _Regrettably,_ _we simply cannot risk our people for the sake of one ninja, no matter how much I wish it were otherwise_ , and take a sip of sake? 

Everything slides sideways in Kakashi’s thoughts, memory of telling Sai to go fading into emerging from that cave with Rin and facing a crowd of Iwa nin they couldn’t hope to defeat. He finds himself looking around his dark cell for Rin, heart in his throat, sure she’s long dead but praying she was taken captive with him. 

It might be fever, it might be poison, it might be a concussion. It’s impossible for him to properly assess himself; instead he drifts in and out for most of the day before being dragged into a new room where he flinches ineffectually away from the professional, uncaring ministrations of a third-rate foreign healer who fixes up Kakashi’s side with clumsy medical ninjutsu that burns and tingles and numbs in all the wrong ways. 

Being healed is no relief; it only signals that they intend to get something out of him before they kill him. 

* * *

Seven days into his captivity, a rat crawls across Kakashi’s foot. It’s not the first rat he’s seen, but this one stops on his foot and turns to look at him, little feet digging into the side of Kakashi’s sandals, like it’s checking to see if he’s dead yet. 

Kakashi is not dead — yet — so he tells the rat, “No. Bad. Go away.” Then he twitches his foot and hopes that will convey to the rat that it shouldn’t start nibbling on him. 

The rat hunkers down, like it’s preparing to spring off the moment he really kicks his foot, but the joke’s on the rat because wiggling his foot is _all_ Kakashi can manage around the pain and chakra exhaustion. Even if the rat _did_ start chewing on him, Kakashi would just... have to let it. 

Actually, being chewed to death by a rat doesn’t sound too bad. Certainly better than the death-by-inches awaiting him otherwise. Maybe, Kakashi considers, he could get the rat to go for a major artery. 

Then the rat’s tail brushes against Kakashi’s toes. It feels... Kakashi is no _expert_ in how rat tails are _supposed_ to feel, but this rat’s tail doesn’t feel like it belongs to any kind of real animal. No, from the papery rasp of the tail on his skin, he knows instantly what he hadn’t been able to discern in the darkness of his cell: 

This animal is one of Sai’s. 

Dread curls in Kakashi’s stomach, cuts through his previous apathy. It hasn’t even been long enough for Sai to get to Konoha and back with reinforcements. “You were supposed to leave,” he tells the rat. “You need to leave. South. South, and don’t look back.” 

The rat skitters off to parts unknown — maybe going right back to Sai, maybe going to case the rest of the building — leaving Kakashi alone again, the grimy cement at his back seeping a permanent chill into him, his wrists and shoulders aching from the way they’re held tight over his head. He hopes Sai will listen. 

* * *

“You disobeyed a direct order,” Kakashi says when Sai comes for him, though he’s not sure how much of his deep displeasure comes across — the words are slurred, and he says them just as Sai is breaking the cuffs from his wrists, allowing Kakashi to slump forward, his forehead resting on Sai’s shoulder. 

It’s a really bony shoulder, but it’s nice. It’s damp, too, but with Sai’s dark clothing and the strange shadows cast by the flare Sai had shown up carrying it’s impossible to tell what with. 

Probably blood, though. It’s usually blood, in Kakashi’s experience. Hopefully not _Sai’s_ blood. 

Sai doesn’t give him the satisfaction of a reply, instead pushing Kakashi away so that Kakashi leans back against the wall of the cell again and Sai can briskly run his hands across each of Kakashi’s arms, across his legs, over his chest and sides and stomach. Looking for obvious breaks, for wounds, for any reason not to move Kakashi immediately. He won’t find much; the aim of Kakashi’s captors hadn’t been to let him die _quickly_ , after all. 

In the interest of giving Sai all the pertinent information he has, Kakashi tells him, “I can’t fight. Or even stand. They’ll be here any minute. You should have left me to die.” 

“I took measures to prevent interruption of our exfiltration by your captors.” 

There had been a lot of them, and Sai is a very competent ninja, but Kakashi wouldn’t think he was capable of distracting an entire enemy base at once, especially not without backup. “How?” Kakashi croaks. 

This time Sai leans back enough to make eye contact, black-on-black eyes catching a sharp glint of light from the flare. “Rat poison,” Sai says. 

“Rat poison,” Kakashi echoes. 

Sai nods and doesn’t elaborate. That’s okay — Kakashi can imagine. 

The unsecured food stores. The ink animals, creeping through holes too small for conventional means of ingress. The planning, the waiting, the creeping solitude. Kakashi doesn’t take missions that rely on poisoning if he can help it, and running one alone with no preparation wouldn’t be easy. It’s not something Kakashi would ever have asked of Sai, not something Sai could have been expected to do, not something Kakashi really deserves. 

When Sai has ascertained that Kakashi’s not injured too badly to move, they move on to trying to leave. They discover that Kakashi’s too weak and dizzy to reliably walk more than a few feet. He shoves himself to his feet, staggers away from the wall, and almost immediately tilts dangerously towards the floor. 

Sai folds him over his shoulder and carries him like a sack of potatoes, keeping Kakashi steady with one arm locked around the back of his knees. It gives Kakashi an excellent view of Sail’s heels and the strange shape of their shadow. 

“You’re not going to princess-carry me?” Kakashi asks on their way out of the cell, his arms hanging limply down in front of him. 

“No,” Sai says. “If I did not successfully exterminate the enemy from this base, I will need to be able to drop you easily.” 

“You’d drop me?” Kakashi asks. “So hurtful.” 

Sai doesn’t respond to him — or maybe he does, but Kakashi is only hovering on the edge of consciousness, and the sensation of being carried by a trusted comrade who’s far more combat ready than Kakashi himself is makes it hard not to fade in and out. 

* * *

He wakes up when they’re above ground. Sai is following some byzantine path, winding through room upon room that smells of carnage, where the air crackles with recently-discharged jutsu. Sai’s every step is measured, careful, certain. He ghosts over still-wet blood without leaving footprints. 

In an interior hall that looks like all of the other windowless, featureless halls they’ve passed though, Sai tosses a flare into the doorway of a darkened room. He must have spread accelerant in the room before going to get Kakashi, because the room immediately, dramatically catches fire, the heat of it pressing against Kakashi’s back as Sai continues down the hall and into another stairway that Sai takes all the way to the top of the building. 

On their way up they pass a few corpses and a great deal of blood. Some of the bodies have the usual signs, like one woman who looks like she was torn open from shoulder to hip by one of Sai’s lions, but others who seem to have bled out from minor wounds, which Kakashi supposes answers the question of which type of rat poison Sai had used. 

When they emerge onto the roof, the air outside is fresh and cool, whipping past them with a stiff breeze. The sun is setting. Sai shunshins to the edge of the building’s roof and slides Kakashi off his shoulder for a moment before lifting him onto the soft, paper-feather back of Sai’s large bird constructs. 

Sai doesn’t draw each individual feather when he uses the Super Beast Scroll technique, but they’re there all the same, comforting and familiar. Each feather has the texture of paper that’s been folded and creased and rolled and crumpled so many times it more resembles fabric, and the edges are outlined with delicate black strokes of ink, something Kakashi knows Sai must imagine every time he draws the bird. Overall every inch of the hawk is familiar, comforting, safe: they’ve definitely made it out, they’re definitely going home. 

Regrettably, though, gravity still exists and Kakashi can no more keep himself on a nice, friendly ink construct as he can keep himself standing up straight. He starts to slide off, even as the bird wheels gently to head southwest. Kakashi makes a politely distressed sound — no need to be demanding, it’s not as if Sai couldn’t definitely catch him — 

Sai turns to look. His only sign of surprise is a slight widening of the eyes. He reaches out quickly to grab the back of Kakashi’s vest and hauls him not just back up onto the bird but straight into Sai’s personal space, until Kakashi is draped over Sai’s lap, his body folded around Sai’s torso, legs and arms hanging down the sides of the bird. 

Beneath them the base is already puffing smoke out of several windows, well on its way to being a smouldering heap. Sai doesn’t let go of Kakashi’s vest, both hands fisted tightly in the dirty fabric like Kakashi might try to escape. 

* * *

Halfway back to Land of Fire, they have to stop so Sai can regain chakra. Kakashi’s glad for the break, especially when it comes with a meal and a bedroll. Usually they’d split the watch, but he and Sai both know that Kakashi’s in no state to remain alert and focused. He’s probably some kind of concussed, the kind that will make Tsunade yell at him. 

He drifts off next to Sai easily, safe and relatively comfortable, and wakes hours later when the birds start chirping in the pre-dawn light. 

Sai must notice him wake up, because he says something, but Kakashi is still to sleep-fogged to hear clearly. He stirs, squirming inside the bedroll so he can look at Sai, and asks him to repeat himself. 

“I would do it again,” Sai repeats. His eyes aren’t on Kakashi; he’s watching the woods around them. 

Kakashi blinks up at him, bewildered, feeling like he’s missed half the conversation. “Do what?” 

“Disobey your direct order.” Sai says the words carefully. Not delicately, but definitely like they might be something dangerous. Like they might turn _Kakashi_ into something dangerous. 

Kakashi says, “Oh, that,” and yawns. He rolls onto his back and looks up at the canopy. It’s kind of crappy, because these aren’t Land of Fire trees, but the leaves rustle and bounce with the wind, offering glimpses of the dawn-grey sky, so it’s not too bad. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Sai’s lips thin, his jaw tighten. Not really a happy expression. Sometimes Kakashi fools himself into thinking that Sai is the least complicated of all his kids, the easiest to deal with, but the truth of the matter always comes back to slap him in the face at the earliest opportunity. Sai is the most complicated. Sai is the one he understands the least. 

It probably means something deep and profound that Sai’s talking about breaking orders, but Kakashi’s not really equipped to dig into the _feelings_ of this situation. They’re both alive and relatively unharmed. Everything’s fine. 

“Are you thinking about section six point one, subsection B?” Kakashi asks, fumbling to guess the angle of Sai’s thoughts; 6.1b is the part of the regulations that lays out the consequences of insubordination. 

Sai gives a tight nod. 

“I hate that part of the regulations, too, just like I hate all of section nineteen,” Kakashi muses. “Really, nearly the whole reg book is trash. We should get you some better reading material when we get back.” 

There’s a brief pause. 

“..I believe Tsunade-sama will be confining you to the hospital for some time,” Sai says. 

“She usually does.” Kakashi turns his head so he can watch Sai a little better and speak directly to him. “Guess you’ll have to visit me. Or at least distract Naruto so he doesn’t talk my ear off while I’m trapped and helpless.” 

Sai nods again, this time like he’s been given a mission. Kakashi can already see him turning over the problem of how exactly to distract Naruto to get Kakashi some peace and quiet. They’ll be home by this time tomorrow, which is probably just about enough time for Sai to decide on a course of action, and Kakashi looks forward to seeing whatever chaos ensues. 

**Author's Note:**

> Note about rat poison: I'm specifically referencing [Warfarin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warfarin), which is a blood thinner that was a very popular rat poison for a long while. It feels like something Sai could get his hands on in a hurry without a lot of bother and is apparently odorless and tasteless. There's an excellent [Sawbones](https://www.maximumfun.org/sawbones/sawbones-warfarin) episode about it.


End file.
